Expression of 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 is associated with some clinicopathological features in gastric cancer

In most populations, gastric cancer (GC) incidence is higher in men than in women, which may suggest the role of sex steroid hormones in gastric cancerogenesis. Both, androgens and estrogens can be synthetised in peripherial tissues. This process is controlled by expression of steroidogenic enzymes. Therefore, we evaluate the 17β-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase type 2 (HSD17B2) transcript and protein levels in gastric tumoral and nontumoral tissue. We also determined the association between HSD17B2 transcript and protein levels and some clinicopathological features in GC. We found significantly decreased levels of HSD17B2 transcript (P=0.00072) and protein (P=0.00017) in primary tumoral tissues of GC patients, as compared to nontumoral tissues. In patients above 60 years of age the amounts of HSD17B2 transcript (P=0.00044) and protein (P=0.00027) were significantly lower in tumoral than nontumoral tissues. Similarly, lower HSD17B2 levels, both in terms of the transcript and protein, were observed in tumoral tissues of male (P=0.013, P=0.0014), patients stomach (P=0.0062, P=0.045) and cardia (P=0.02, P=0.02) site of tumor, T3 (P=0.018, P=0.014) depth of invasion, N0 (P=0.017, P=0.045) lymph node metastasis, G3 (P=0.0027, P=0.014) malignancy grade. We also observed significantly reduced level of HSD17B2 transcript in tumoral tissue specimens of females (P=0.014), T4 depth of invasion (P=0.02), N3 lymph node metastasis (P=0.037) and G2 malignancy grade (P=0.045). Furthermore, diffuse GC histological types were associated with lower HSD17B2 protein level (P=0.024) than nontumoral tissues. We demonstrated that HSD17B2 transcript and protein levels are linked to some clinicopathological features in GC.